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Show 'Hq from other editor ' I From the Whiteside Sentinel, Morrison, Illinois: There's no doubt about it. Commencement is a big deal for father as well as for every high-schooler. In our own high school days, we thought of It more as a conclusion than a commencement com-mencement an end to what seemed like endless years of mental drudgery. But, of course, when the Big Day came, there was an orator (as there always is) to explain what it was we were commencing. This, in fewer words than the speaker required, was to start standing on our own feet and to begin giving father a break. And today, while we question whether our so-called "higher" education is high enough scholas-tically, scholas-tically, every parent knows it's higher than ever In the economic sense. In our day, for Instance, an orchid or-chid was something you found in the dictionary, not at a high school dance. And an automobile was a Family Possession that Junior might be permitted to drive on very special occasions provided father was sufficiently opulent to have an automobile. And "spending "spend-ing money," a very precarious commodity, derived from an outrageous out-rageous amount of spare-time toil per twenty-five-cent-piece. Not only are the above appur tenances pretty generally taken for granted by today's Flaming Youth, but such hum-drum items as paper and pencils and school-books, school-books, and the educational tax-bite tax-bite have also gone up, and can be expected to keep soaring. Even the rental cost of the graduating grad-uating enp-and-gown has gone upl In 1935 the year Huey Long was shot the price of this hour of glory went up SO cents; and now, only two dozen years later, comes another boost. . This mlgh'. well be considered that last straw to break the back of the Family Camel. That Is, until un-til poor old father considers the alternative goes shopping with the sweet girl graduate for other attire equal to the occasion and discovers that the dress is only a starter. There must be "accessories" "acces-sories" from spike heels to the kind of a hat you wouldn't think of wearing later to the super-market. And what-toe-other-girls-ar-wearing (as father will learn) consists con-sists of items that little daughter must have something better than. Of course, if it's just one of the boys that's graduating, the Old Man can buy him a new blue suit for little more than the young hopeful's weekly salary If and when he lands a good steady job. |